2. No sentimen- And this all has truly happened to me. But photography
tality towards gets spoiled of time, like does everything what used to be a living,
pulsating piece of the reality. The photographs loose their original
Moth-
the meaning on the way, and get absolutely useless. I’m trying to hold
erland. them in a handful, to carry them, being afraid to drop even one, to
carry them to the world of the meaningfulness and eternity… But
Absolutely
stumble on the way, drop them all and collect them again…
none. I’m I want the impossible – to conserve the memories, to take the very
standing under essence of it and to squeeze it all, with all the strength I have and
a huge apple- to put it in the can and to put the can on the shelf. This insuper-
tree, and the able wish to own everything you’ve ever touched and seen. Then
apples are fall- these memories will keep their original taste, but will get another
ing on me like status. They will enjoy their place on the shelf, separated from each
the stones. The
juicy autumn
green apples
#1 #2
other and carefully sorted, safe, clean and almost understandable.
Canned goods are always good
with such an
aroma… the
apples smell
like this only at
home. At my I want todig these memories in the foreign ground to have a small
unloved home- chance to keep them.
land. And I But after crossing the border all the values are automatically zeroized.
have so much And everything what happened to me in the sad snowy country looses
it’s original meaning, becomes the home-made, which can boast only
pity for these
apples. Because with it’s authenticity.
nobody will That’s why nothing is left except to create metaphors from text, con-
nect the photos with each other and with the life itself.
eat them. Ever.
And they are What happened to me there will never repeat here, in a safe artifi-
falling and cial Holland. And these are exactly the autumn soar apples which fall
falling and fall and eternally fall on me.
and falling
3.
4. #3
I was called after my grand grandmother Irinia. She was almost a saint, very
thin, and wore a shawl always neatly tied under the chin. My grand grandfa-
ther was always jealous of her, even when he was 80. Once he decided to play
a joke and has took a ladder from the cellar, where they stored potatoes. There
was no light then, and my she has fallen and broke both the legs. The gangrene
has started. There was no medicine at those times at all. So when
her toes were becoming black one after another, she just took the scissors and
cut them off. One after another. Knip-knap, knip-knap. And she was
smiling in order not to scream.
There is her wonderful engraved mirror left in my granny’s house. When I look
into it, I think I see a person from the 19th century, like from a dagerotype.
With the scissors in the hand. Knip-knap.
Knip-knap
5. My grandfather from the mother’s side has died from alco-
holism far away before my birth. Everyone have loved him,
but everyone used to say: happily he has died, otherwise he
#5 Everyone tells
me that I look
exactly like
would have terrorize us more, beat us and turn out of the my grand-
house. They said, he was very cheery, when drunk enough, father. My
and played the harmonica as a god. My granny has confessed mother took
afterwards that she had made about 15 abortions me often to the
from him, with the knitting needles and whatever, and a cemetery in
couple of times she almost died from the bleeding. He was the forest. We
always jealous of her, but she never had anyone, except him, sat together
at the table,
#4
even after his death. And he on the contrary, had dozens of
women. He held her hair in his fist, dragged them and asked: unpacked the
why are you not finishing? She only many years after his eggs, apples,
death, in the 90s, in the boom of the sexual revolution and cucumbers
the TV-programs, understood what meant “to finish”. “And and vodka.
I was lying under him like a stone. If someone could explain And she told
me the sto-
me, that the sex can be different. ries about my
I grandfather.
Always trying
never to keep them
good because
knew
you talk good
that». or none about
the dead. “He
was a good
person. And
funny, always
funny. He
would fart in
the fist and put
then under
your nose.
Always shared
something to
enjoy.”
6.
7. #5 In my grandfather’s family everything went Something was broken in our family – something
wrong. His father, my grand grandfather worked irremediable. The waves from this explosion will
in Moscow, and his family lived in the village. He follow many more generation.
was always jealous of his wife, and when he came, His wife, my grand grandmother was paralyzed
he drunk like a cobber, and then again went away right after that. She was lying in her bed, motion-
to work. And when he got fired, he returned to less, bad-tempered and was cursing everyone and
the village very angry and nervous, and couldn’t everything. Her youngest son had to take care of
find a place. His wife milked the cow, mowed her patiently. And once he fell in love with a girl
the hay, and he thought that it’s not work of his from the same village. He came to his mother to
level. Once they’ve quarreled badly, he started ask permission to marry this girl. And the mother
to beat her, and she took the children and found has refused furiously. At that time she had grown
a heritage at the neighbor’s. After three days he really fat and was almost not sound in her mind.
still hasn’t come for her. So she decided to go He had an argument with her, and then got de-
back and make peace. She came home, started pressed and started drinking badly. And once
knocking in the doors and windows, and nobody he was returning home and has fallen into a pit.
opened. Then she broke the window, entered And drowned. In a pit not deeper than an ankle. A
Shit,
the house, and he – he has hanged himself. few hundred meters from home. Shit, Shit,
shit, shit. Shit.
People were saying that he decided to play a joke, His brother, my grandfather, has never recovered
or to make a rehearsal, because he didn’t even from that. At the funeral he was crying like a baby,
leave a message. But this has happened. And it and after that became unreasonably and sophisti-
was a hell. catedly cruel. So cruel that everyone had to hide
in the corners like the fleas.
8.
9. In my father’s family
there were the witches
and shamans. They
#6
say, my grand grandfa-
ther was a rural healer,
and all the village used
his help in every situa-
tion. He had to give the
knowledge to the older
son, but that one didn’t
have the talent and didn’t
want to learn the magical
skills. And the younger
son wanted and had the
talent, but the grand
grandfather didn’t allow
him to learn. That young-
er son was our direct
ancestor. My grandmoth-
er had known about her
death because the bird
knocked in her window.
And she used her time to
tell the coming news to
everyone, to hide or de-
molish her second pass-
port, which she used to
get the double pension, so
that after the car accident
nobody could find it any
more. And when in the
bad years her tomb-
stone was stolen for the
scrap metal, she came to
us in the dreams to tell
about this with the very
significant signs.
10.
11. #8
My parents had serious difficulties to make me.
Before marrying my mother, my dad has passed an
2-year obligatory military service in Boykonur,
#7
the supersecrecret space station somewhere deep
in the steppes of Kazakhstan. He was working with
the fuel, probably radioactive, without any protec-
My parents got to know each other on “the potatoes” . tion, but then nobody was telling this. Only five
All the students these years were sent for obligatory cropping of years after the wedding I have happened – really
the fields. The government had no money to employ someone, so like Tom Thumb in the family of desperate old man
they preferred to use the slaves. The headscarfs tighed unneatly and woman. They called me chiseled and evoked a
behind the necks, rubber boots, disco in the evening on the wood- mouthful more of the dirty jokes about the issue.
en floor of the rural clubs, and endless fields of Russian love.
One week after the aqquintance they applied to register the mar-
riage, because IT had happened to them and my father HAD to
be a gentleman. I have heard that he had a really big love
before my mother, but she died in a motorbike accident while
riding with ANOTHER MAN. My father has never talked about
this again, but has always been kind of sad and absent. Reading
books while eating and in the toilet. Going fishing at every possible
day-off. Quietly obeying with everything she sais.
12. #9
I felt some physical repulsion towards my mother. Not
her, but her body, soft and cold, covered with thick fat. After her
wet kisses I wanted to wipe myself and when I got older I didn’t
allow her to kiss me any more. At all.
The father’s body was on the contrary, hot, and firm. Even
when his belly started growing enormously, it was still hard
as a stone and covered with the hair. They almost always stay
at home and think that they live a happy and calm life. My
father reads the books in the toilet and while eating, without
remembering what was on the previous page. My mother al-
ways tries to be a chief. She is not clever but sensitive.
#10
Once father’s friend of childhood came to
visit us. He has left for Moscow and became
an important person, but they still had a
lot to share and to laugh about. They
have closed themselves on the kitchen. But
the kitchen had a glass door, such thick
mate glass with the flowers in every square,
which was in every second house then. So
I could see them but only as a blur. And
stand and listen to their adult talks. When
it was over midnight, I finally got a plan. I
wrapped mother’s headscarfs over my
thighs and put on her bra. When I went
to the kitchen, my father started growling
from anger, and they took me to the room,
and I was trying to protest and escape. Then
my father has thrown me on the bed, and
mother has beaten me with a slipper. And
I was lying long on the bed, and crying, not
of pain, but out of anger, while looking at
the sparkling rays of the night lamp over my
head. Such a standard soviet lamp imitating
the medieval street lantern.
13. #12
In the kindergarten I never was close
to any of the children, but I tried
to always talk to the teachers on the
philosophical issues. We were big
friends with this teacher, when one
day my parents couldn’t come to pick
me up (because someone’s funerals or
something). There were pretty often
children forgotten in the kinder-
garten, and the teacher took them all
to sleep at her place. She lived in the
far end of the city, and that time I
was the first time at her place. These
evening there were two other children
as well. Always sniveling girl with a
hair cut “a pot” and the teacher’s own
#11
daughter. The teacher made for us the
big pan of 12 scrambled eggs, with
the bright yellow yolks. And it was the
In the kindergarden they made us sleep during the day, but I never did. I was star- tastiest dish I’ve eaten in my life. I was
ing at the pattern on the wall-paper, such greenish worn-out pattern, depicting the taking one piece after another until
exaggerated curves forming the figures. And I was also staring at the hairy ankles have finished it all. And she came
of the nanny. The elastic tights would flatten these hair into the black waves. The from the kitchen and had no eggs for
beds were arranged in the pairs, but we could sleep only in the sixty-nine posi- herself any more…
tion, and to put the hands strictly over the blanket, I never could understand why. I
never slept, but played with my fingers, and had really strange and daring dreams.
14. We were climbing the roofs of the ga-
rages and chewing the tar. Such black
sticky mass to cover the roofs – instead
of the real chewing gums, which we
couldn’t get at that time because of the
“shortage”. When someone’s parents
brought some chewing gum from
#13
abroad we would chew it in turns until
it completely looses it’s taste and even
further – sometimes for several days.
Those who could chew it first had the
highest status in our hierarchy. But
tar was something everyone could get.
At first it was stone hard, and then be-
came soft, was sticking to the dents and
caused a lot of drooling. When we re-
turned home, our parents first asked to
#14
show our teeth. If the teeth were black,
that meant that we had chewed the tar,
which was very harmful. We knew that
but chewed it anyway.
I was collecting the atumn
leaves when suddenly I thought:
Here am I, Ira Popova, a girl
of seven years old, a child. Some
whole unchangeable substance.
What will be if I die? What if
the tram runs over me? Such
thoughts maybe come to every-
one. But I remember very sharp-
ly how they came to me - with
the smell of those dead autumn
leaves. And pain inside, it smells
always from that moment with
these autumn leaves.
15. I had a chineese
pink school rucksack.
And once it had just
fallen apart badly,
and I needed to go
to school. So my
grandmother gave
me her shopping bag
to put my school-
books in it. After
#15
school everyone
went to a classmate’s
birthday. And when
I came there and
rang the bell, every-
one were inside but
wouldn’t open. They
were laughing about
#16
my bag. And then I
went home and sud-
denly on the way I
lost my speech. My mother is hysteric. She has always been, but she pretends that I’ve
Nothing extreme made her like this. Once I went swimming to the lake, and swam to another
happened, I just shore. The water was soft and pleasant, and I was just thinking about Africa
couldn’t speak any and stuff when I already noticed that I’ve passed the half. I was so tired by
more. It has lasted then that I decided better to go to another shore. And then I didn’t under-
for three days, and stand on which side I was any more, because everything has seemed the
my mother brought same. Then I met the boys who have jumped from the high swing right into
me different kinds the lake and stayed with them for some time. And meanwhile the whole vil-
of psychothera- lage was searching for me with the divers. When I came back my mother was
pist and healers. crying and told that I have stolen 5 years of her life. And I wanted just to have
Could have bought a right for my own freedom and adventure. But I was not talking to them, I
me a new schoolbag was just eating the tasty fried fish which my father has caught himself before
instead. my disappearance that morning.
16.
17. #17 The children summer camp was like a bad dream. There were only a few bar-
racks with the pictures from the cartoons, and the pine trees endlessly all around it.
Just because I seemed strange to some people.
They didn’t like me from the be- And
In ginning, so one day they found a everyone
this cause to do it. I was playing with the could
camp girl, and have clumsily let her fall. do
I got Then they called me to have a whatever
beaten they
once. “meeting” at the football field. wanted
They were with more than ten with
people and I was alone. They were me.
standing in a circle and I was in the
center.
To push me all the way round, track on my hair, put the nettle into my t-shirt,
and someone even has caught a frog and threw in my. I remember only one thing
– till the last moment I tried not to notice anything and not to cry. Suddenly my
body became soft like if I just had let it go, because it would be worse to protest.
Finally someone had shouted: “Hey, it’s enough, let her go!” and everyone sud-
denly became a bit confused, and some people who just have beaten me even
came to me to ask me if I was ok and if I needed some help. But I couldn’t believe
my luck and run away, but actually my feet didn’t obey me any more. I went to the
bath house (banya). It wasn’t the washing day (it was only twice a week), but the
door was open and I entered it. It was the only place where I could find a shelter. I
began to wash off the dirt, very carefully, then to spill the cold water all over my
head. I didn’t feel anything any more. And only when I finished I sat naked on the
floor and started crying and then couldn’t stop for several hours. At that time they
organized the group to search for me, because they thought I have drowned myself
in the river. When they found me, they only threatened that it would be worse if I
tell to the teachers. And I was silent, but it seemed that everyone in the camp knew
what had happened. The rest of the time I devoted to the exercise of being lonely
and strong. I tried to concentrate on reading the books, but couldn’t do it. So
I was strolling around the forest trying to find places without the people. But there
seemed to be no such places. And that’s what the adults call “To get a sip of fresh air”.
18.
19. My cousins have often stayed at my place.
They were twins, a boy and a girl. I was a bit
older and always told them frightening stories
#18 #19 We had very strange neighbors across the wall. They
were quarreling every evening, shouting how they really hated
about the snots and shit. And sometimes each other, and wanted to kill each other. And after that they
we were grooving and whispering till the made love also very loudly and emotionally. And I suppose
morning and my mother always came to the they had also chickens and a pig living on the 5th floor of
room to say “Pssssst”. And once we had to stay the block building. I’ve never seen them but could guess by the
absolutely alone, because all our parents were sounds. My mother has bought a special thick carpet to hang
on the wedding. Then we were laughing so on the wall next to my bed because of these neighbors. Because
loud that the neighbor started knocking my bed was just next to the wall.
on the radiator which connects the whole
5-storey building, so probably all the neigh-
bors were up. And that night I have learned
them to kiss. Both of them. I told that I
could do it very well, but it was the first time
for me as well. Fantastic and sweet experience.
20. #20 And we also had the neighbors with
6 children. The two younger boys were
#21 We stole a boat. Just like this – we sat in it,
untied the rope, pushed ourselves into the
water and started floating. It was a big, en-
dwarfs, probably because they got not ourmous lake with the bays and long curves.
enough vitamins. They were cursing, With the swampy uninhabited shores.
spitting and offending the little children in My aunt has told me the scary stories about
the yard. So I preferred to run away when the wolves on the other side. And there
I saw them. And we were calling them were no oars in the boat and it was leak-
“homeless”, that specific word has ing like a crazy, so we were drowning in
just appeared in those times and we used it the middle of the lake, somewhere after the
as something as offensive as “shit”. I didn’t curve where nobody could see us. And we
know the meaning of the word, but heard it didn’t know what was worse – to drown or to
from my parents when they told that the be discovered by angry owner. I thought we
pigeons suddenly disappeared from the could go to the prison for that. Then the rain
city because they were eaten by “the home- has started and we were sitiing in the boat,
less people”. not knowing what to do, until the boat came
to some shore. We left the boat there and
went home through the wild bushes.
21. I came to St. Petersburg to enter the university . My mother
gave me the money for living and advised me to put it in my bra
for the safety. It was very confusing when I had to take it out in some
office to pay for the campus rent. And it seems that I’ve dropped it
somewhere while putting back. So I was left with a room but without
money at all. And I didn’t take with me much stuff, but I happened to
have a binocular. Then I went to Isaak Cathedral and was stand-
ing in front of the entrance with handing binocular for some money.
You take it on the entrance and return back after one round at the top
of the cathedral. And it worked. I was buying the fat cottage mass
with raisins in the market and tickets to the Chaikovsky concert in
conservatorium. Finally it was too much stress and I failed
#22
my
exams
there,
and
I was
sitting
and
#23
cry-
ing in
front I got a room in the university campus with 3 other
of the girls. It was on 16th floor and we got everything except
por- the curtains. “Why do you need curtains, you stay here
trait only one month?” was the argument of the zavhoz (the
of Lo- chief of the utilities). The windows were looking at the
mono- sea and every day there was so much sun at the sunset
sov, the that I couldn’t work, so I sat on the windowsill with
found- my feet hanging outside. It was the most beautiful sunset
er of in the world. And once I couldn’t enter the hostel because
this it was blocked because of the fire. There were also peo-
univer- ple jumping from the windows from time to time.
sity. Strange enough, it didn’t happen to me though I think
suicide is a result of the Newton gravitation.
22. #24 Another time I was travelling to St. Petersburg with the suburb trains. That means
that from Moscow to St. Petersburg you have to change the trains 5 times. But if you
know the timetable you can do it easily. There was the whole social bottom of Russia
travelling this way. The disabled people and people with the special paper (homeless
I met a guy with long hair in St. Petersburg on the river bank. He said that he with lost passport) could travel like this to their native city to recover their passport.
came from Omsk or some other big Siberian city. That he had university, work, lov- And we met often the football fans and just subculture youth (rockers, hippies, etc.)
ing parents and a girlfriend. But on some day he decided to quit all this, and went who just didn’t want to pay and escaped from the controllers. The football fans and
hitchhiking to St. Petersburg (about 3000 km). And now he has nothing except a skin heads shouted through the couch and behaved pretty aggressively. The rest has
guitar over his shoulder and a beautiful and cold city. felt like one big and friendly party. When the control entered we have singed: “Noth-
We were wandering through the streets all the night long looking at the beauty, and ing is better than wander through the world”, a song from a cartoon.
finally we found a shelter in a porch of an ancient Admiralty house. We were
sleeping right on the staircase, under his overcoat, and I saw some weird uneasy
dreams mixed with the reality, probably because of cold. And there we found a big
rusted ancient nail . I took it with me back to Tver, but never saw again neither the
nail, nor the guy.
It was all because of Jarmush. I decided to move to St. Petersburg. I met a filmmaker who
was making a film about me. And I wore dreadlocks and funny knitted hat. I told that I
loved Jarmush and the filmmaker invited me to come to his place. I came and stayed for a
week. It was written on his wallpaper “I want to shoot films”. And he did. I think I felt in
love not with the filmmaker but with his dream and with his strong and easy-going atti-
tude. We were smoking hashish at his kitchen and listening to “Alice in Wonderland”. He
advised me to get a job at video salon on Nevsky Prospect. And I did. I was working in a
night turn in a small video shop stuffed with the DVDs of popular films and pornography
But I was trying to find some art house films to play on the big screen on the wall. Like
“The zoo” by Peter Greenaway. And there always came some strange types in the night
to warm up. Some people who were left on the wrong side of the river after the bridge
opening. Or prostitutes, homeless children, drug addicts and alcoholics. And they all said
“Come on, put on something cheering”. But I didn’t.
23. Once I decided to rent a room in a communal
I met a group of hippies while living in another communal
flat in St. Petersburg. I found a cheap room in an
flat next to Nevsky prospect. My neighbors were drug users,
alco-trash district in the center. In my flat some
and the only sympathetic people in the whole place. In that
alcoholics were sitting in the kitchen all the time.
year there was a hippy festival “Rainbow” in Karelia, and
And the kitchen and corridor were all stuffed with
the whole gang of hippies has arrived afterwards to St. Pete.
some strange items like old plastic bags, tyres,
Many of them found a shelter at my neighbors sleeping like
piles of newspapers etc. etc. My room was so small
a pile of firewood on the floor. One day I woke up feeling a
that there could be only a bed and a wardrobe, and
smell of rice with curry from the kitchen. It was cooked for
some small space to move, like in Raskolnikov’s
the whole commune. And some time after a part of these
room. I had a CD player and headphones, in order
people has moved to my place, and soon I have quit my
to block the noise of the alcoholic parties from the
work, started learning to play drums and to make fireshows,
kitchen. And after one week there appeared a fat
and discovered myself travelling hitchhiking to the Black sea
man from Azerbaidjan with a family, who started
together with them.
to shout that it was his room and I had no right
for it. So I discovered myself on the street, with all
my stuff, passing through the bridge with golden
griphons and crying.
I met a friend who invited me to come to Moscow and to stay at
his place. He was into historical reconstruction and practically that
meant that the whole room was stuffed with the armor and every
evening in this winter there came 8-10 people to smoke kalian.
They all were working as the construction alpinists, and that winter
they got hired by the house service to clean the snow from the
roofs. That was the snowless winter, but they still got their sala-
ries, and time to sit with the kalian every day. And I was running
through Moscow, photographing the buildings, but selling noth-
ing. For a change I bought a huge puzzle with a painting of Gaugin,
and started to put it together in between the armor piles. It was the
times of slowly going mad, so I decided to return to Tver. For that I
had to break the puzzle, put it in the box, and start from the begin-
ning. There is still a huge image of Taitian girls with pears hidden
under the carpet in my parents’ house.
24. I rented a room together with a strange girl. I found her I the
internet, and she was looking for a roommate. Her boyfriend
had gotten to prison for the carrying a matchbox of weed, and
she was really depressed. She used to spend several hours in the
morning to dress and make up her face, and then suddenly to
lie down on the bed and cry, and the rest of the day to watch
the soap operas from 10 years ago. She also had a rabbit, who
had gnawed all my cables for computer. After that I said that I
was going to put a carrot in his ass. Soon it was the end of my
living there.
Then I was invited to stay in a lesbian commune in Moscow. It
was just a way to rent a cheap flat and to get some tolerant peo-
ple around you. I was sleeping on the same blow-up mattress
with a woman 10 years older than me, but that mattress was the
only thing which connected us. It was loosing the air and by the
morning our bodies were rolling to the middle and touching the
ground. The woman was very much stressed because her dog was
slowly dying, her white dog philosopher, and we had to take care
of it, to clean the shit. When the dog has died the woman became
hysterical, got drunk and broke the CD-player, and cursed us all.
That’s how it ended and it took me an eternity to clean the white
wool from all my clothes.
25. Once my friend photographer has told Inside the territory I noticed a jeep
me about a very far away mon-
#22
with some fat people frying a shash-
astery with a saint unfreezing stream. lyk. So we put our dress on the snow
People say that if you dive in them three and dived. I hesitated if I should be
times you’ll get all your sins washed off. completely naked. Finally my friend
It was a snowy winter when we decided dived three times bravely, and I de-
to go there. It took us all the day to get cided not to dive with my head. It was
there by train, bus and then – 5 kilom- hot and weird feeling. Then we dressed
eters with a timber-hauling vessel who quickly and went on foot 5 kilometers
took us on the way through the forest. back to the village trough deep snow and
Finally we arrived when it was very, very dirt. We spent a night on the train sta-
dark. “The saint stream” turned tion, drying our socks on the radiator.
out to be a small well packed in wood The friend told me that he dived because
next to the monastery door. We knocked of his unhappy love. And I didn’t have
at the monastery door, and said to a a reason to dive, anyway I didn’t feel all
monk: “We came to take a saint dive”. my sins got off (otherwise why would
And he said: “Ok, go for it!” and closed God abandon us here in this no-where
the door. station).
No sacred service, Maybe
no putting a cross over us, that was
no prayer, because
no invitation I dived
into the monastery. without my head.
26.
27. Another try to come to the orthodox happened
just before a photography competition where I had
to participate. My teacher from the House of Youth
was strongly orthodox, he even was trying to write
the history of the Russian orthodox church on his own.
He took me to a suburb monastery for the Eucharist
rite, to some “good priest he knows very well”. “The
good priest was not there at the moment” so I had to
go to another one, a very fat man with a beard. I had
to make a confession, so we sat down casually on the
bench. I didn’t know what to tell. Suddenly I uttered:
“Whaaat?”
“Hm,
I
am
a lesbian”.
asked he.
“Well,
I
love
women”,
?”
uncomfortable
said I, feeling a bit
about the situation.
“Do you mean -physically
asked he, and I felt just a manly curiosity.
“Yes, physically”, said I calmly. “Then you have
torepent” , said he. And I tried to repent but
I didn’t know exactly what it meant. I didn’t know how
to behave when he conducted the rest of the ceremony,
and when he gave me a palm, I didn’t understand that
I had to kiss it so I ignored it. After we went away
my teacher asked:
“What have you told to him so that he looked so pale?”
28.
29. We were sitting on the roadside and were eating the eggs which the
mother of my girlfriend has wrapped in plastic several days ago, before I’ve red a report of the autopsy. It was signed with an Armenian name.
our trip. It was the last food which we had, after a long hitch-hiking trip The first thing he wrote about was her genitals. I imagined how an old fat
to St. Petersburg. This time we got seriously stuck and bored to death. man has curiously explored her.
Even dancing on the road didn’t help to stop some truck. We were sitting And her parents have spent a lot of time to suit the bus driver, but the
on the black hard pile of what used to be snow. The shell of the egg didn’t court was obviously corrupt. Once I met this man in the corridor of the
want to get cleaned, and I was looking how our dirty fingers had left the court. He was so ugly, disgusting and inhumanly that I stopped believing
dirty traces on the white bodies of the eggs. And all this time her mother that the victim and the killer have a kind of the contract.
was calling to mine to ask where I stole her daughter. This girl was a poet They tried to prove she has committed suicide. And once her mother
whose family moved from Kamchatka. went to the priest and told that she was a lesbian. He answered: “And she
got her death according to her sins”.
We decided to buy one ticket fro the museums and go in turn. I sent her I worked to publish her poetry into a book, but never has recovered. After
a message: I’m waiting for you where jazz is playing. I was next to Christ that all Russia stays for me a land of sorrow. A land of discontent. A land
the Savior, where the musicians were playing jazz. Then I went to toilet, of absurd tragedies and repeating karma. I can’t agree with the political
and my phone was uncharged. And I lost her. Afterwards I got a mes- and mind changes which are happening there. Every time I return back
sage: there is no jazz, no you. I’m leaving. And she left and I stayed. And there I feel still more of the love-hate emotions. I can’t be so happy and
we never were so close again. And one year after she has died. unhappy as there. Sometimes I feel as if this is the space beyond the end
She was riding a bike, and a bus has run over her and has ruined her of the world. And I decided to step out there. To land to a neutral terri-
body flat. tory. A territory of forgetting and forgiveness.
I was in St. Petersburg and nobody could find me. My mother has called
me several days later, so that I couldn’t come to her funeral.
They have buried her in white dress, like a bride. And she was. I came
only to see the grave. It was so hot, the sun seemed black and it smelled
badly at the cemetery. So badly as only the rotting bodies could smell.
And I put the chamomiles on her grave. Stupid big ugly chamomiles.
And I was so dizzy and the cemetery was so big that I never remembered
the way. Every time when I came afterwards, I had to spend several hours
looking for the grave until I got dark. Sometimes I couldn’t find it.
